featuring guest authors; crafting tips and projects; recipes from food editor and sleuthing sidekick Cloris McWerther; and decorating, travel, fashion, health, beauty, and finance tips from the rest of the American Woman editors.

Friday, March 1, 2013

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY - GUEST AUTHOR F.M. MEREDITH

Back for a return visit today is
F.M. Meredith, also known as Marilyn Meredith, the author of the Deputy Tempe
Crabtree series. She first became interested in writing about law enforcement
when she lived in a neighborhood filled with police officers and their
families. Her interest was fanned when her daughter married a police officer
and the tradition has continued with a grandson and grandson-in-law who are
deputies. She’s also serves on the board of the Public Safety Writers
Association, and has many friends in different law enforcement fields. Learn
more about F.M. at her website and blog.

F.M. is in the middle of a blog
tour and is running a contest. The person who comments on the most blog posts
on her tour may have a character named after him or her in the next Rocky Bluff
P.D. crime novel or choose a book from the previous titles in the Rocky Bluff
P.D. series in either paper or for Kindle. Check her website for the tour
schedule. -- AP

Why I Chose a Fictional Setting
for my Rocky Bluff P.D. Mystery Series

The Rocky Bluff P.D. series could be described as a police procedural,
but it is more than that because I wanted to show as much about the families of
the police officers and how what went on with them affected the job the
officers had to do, and what went on at work affected the families. It is a bit
softer than most police procedurals in that my characters may cuss and swear
but I don’t put it into words.

When planning the first book, Final
Respects, I knew I wanted the story to be in a small town, but not a real
one. I wanted a town I could create and wouldn’t have to worry about mentioning
businesses or restaurants that went out of business by the time the book was
published.

At the time I lived in a small beach community on the coast of
California near Ventura. Since I knew what it was like I decided to create a
town on the coast. I put it north of Ventura and south of Santa Barbara, but in
Ventura County. There is no such town like it.

The town is right on the beach, with low income cottages on the streets
leading to the beach that were built in the 1930s for vacation spots.The main street is Valley Boulevard
where most of the businessare,
including the diner where many of the officers like to grab a quick bite, and a
Chinese restaurant that is upstairs over a Mexican place.

Most of the residences are located on the sloping hillside. The freeway
dissects the city and on the other side are orange groves and ranches.

The town gets its name from the bluff that rises on the north side of
the town. The most expensive homes in the area are located atop the bluff along
with the Rocky Bluff Community Church. There are other churches in town, but
the only one with a larger congregation is the Catholic church. Different
churches have played major parts in some of the previous books.

In my mind, I can see this town as clearly as any I’ve ever lived in. I
can hear the waves rolling in and smell the salty ocean spray. I experience the
fog that comes in and often envelopes everything. I know the beach cottages,
some of them well kept, but most of them in stages of disrepair. I can see the
different styles of houses dotting the hill, some more modern, others built in
an earlier era like Detective Doug Milligan’s small Victorian. I know what each
house looks like where my characters live.

I hope when you read Dangerous
Impulsesyou’ll come away knowing
more about Rocky Bluff and the people who populate it.

Dangerous Impulses

An
attractive new-hire captivates Officer Gordon Butler, Officer Felix Zachary’s
wife Wendy is befuddled by her new baby, Ryan and Barbara Strickland receive
unsettling news about her pregnancy, while the bloody murder of a mother and
her son and an unidentified drug that sickens teenaged partiers jolts the Rocky
Bluff P.D.

Marilyn,I love the setting for your mystery series. After reading several of your books, it's hard for me to believe that Rocky Bluff is a fictional town. It's obvious that it's real to you because you make it come alive for your readers. I'm looking forward to reading "Dangerous Impulses."

I love fictional seaside towns, especially when they are featured in an entire series. The reader in me gets lost in that added element of escapism, while my internal writer says, "it's fun to build a world and populate it with characters"...

Marilyn, Rose and all other talented cozy mystery writers - thanks! I love a good cozy; like your settings; and if it's a series - ah! My bookshelf runneth over 8-)Cyber hugs and good reading and good sales to all of us,Jackie Griffey(Maryvale series & 2 others - see list on Amazon.com 8-)

Newsletter

Keep up with Lois and Anastasia by subscribing to author Lois Winston's newsletter where you'll find special features, contests, and giveaways available only to subscribers.

SCRAPBOOK OF MURDER

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 6

SLEUTHING WOMEN II: 10 MYSTERY NOVELLAS

LITERALLY DEAD: an Empty Nest Mystery, Book 2

SLEUTHING WOMEN: 10 FIRST-IN-SERIES MYSTERIES

A collection of 10 full-length mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem, each the first book in an established multi-book series

A STITCH TO DIE FOR

Book 5 in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series

MOM SQUAD: a Shadow Ops Novella

WE'D RATHER BE WRITING

BAKE, LOVE, WRITE

DEFINITELY DEAD

An Empty Nest Mystery, Book 1

CRAFTY CRIMES

a Trio of Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mysteries

PATCHWORK PERIL

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

DECOUPAGE CAN BE DEADLY

MOSAIC MAYHEM

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

REVENGE OF THE CRAFTY CORPSE

CREWEL INTENTIONS

an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

DEATH BY KILLER MOP DOLL

ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN

THE ANASTASIA POLLACK CRAFTING MYSTERIES

Read about Anastasia in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery seriesby Lois Winston. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews called it "North Jersey's more mature answer to Stephanie Plum." Assault With a Deadly Glue Gunwas also a Book of the Year Award nominee from ForeWord Reviews, a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist, and a Readers Choice Award nominee from the Salt Lake City Library System. Other books in the series include Death by Killer Mop Doll, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, Decoupage Can Be Deadly, A Stitch to Die For, and Scrapbook of Murder, plus three mini-mysteries: Crewel Intentions,Mosaic Mayhem, and Patchwork Peril. Look for more of Anastasia's adventures coming in the future.

About Me

I'm the crafts editor at American Woman magazine; the single parent of two teenage boys and a Shakespeare quoting parrot; caretaker to a semi-invalid, communist mother-in-law from Hell and her demon dog; daughter to a multi-married descendant of the Czars (supposedly); reluctant cat-sitter to Mama's extremely corpulent white Persian cat; a born Jersey girl; and star of my own amateur sleuth mystery series.